THE ONLY OTHER occupants of the train car on the RER were a boy and a girl in their teens sitting across from Jules, two seats behind. They had been there when he got on, and he had taken note of their fast, jerky, almost violent movements, which he knew did not seem that way to them. To him, their gestures were explosive. Their arms flew around and their speech was loud and rushed. He hadn’t been like that when young, but then again he had had a special maturity that he would never have wished upon anyone.
For these kids, Jules didn’t even exist. That is, until he was seized by rapidly advancing confusion and darkness and could neither move nor speak, nor hear, nor see. In the seconds in which he remained conscious he was sure he was dying. Keeling over to his right, he fell into the aisle. The boy and girl stopped their talking. “Drunk,” the boy said. A moment passed.
“Maybe he died,” the girl added.
“No,” her boyfriend added, as if he knew.
“Go see.”
“I’m telling you, he’s drunk.”
“You should check.”
“Do I have to?”
“Yes.”
He got up, walked up the aisle, and stepped over Jules as if stepping over a log. Peering at him, he said, “He’s breathing. He’s not drooling or anything, and I don’t smell alcohol. Maybe he had a heart attack.”
“What can we do?”
“Call it in. I don’t have my phone.”
“My battery’s dead.”
“Why do you do that all the time!”
“It’s too old. You know it’s old. I’m waiting to get the new one. What are we going to do?”
“At the next stop,” the boy said, “we’ll tell someone. What else can we do? I’m not a doctor.”
The train rolled on for five minutes, and when it stopped, the boy and his girlfriend ran out to look, but found no one. Then they watched as the doors closed and the train moved on. Eventually they found two policemen, one of whom asked, “How do you know he wasn’t drunk?”
They argued, but the police were stubborn, they were just about to end their shift, they were tired, and they didn’t want to complicate things. So the train kept moving, just as it was supposed to, into the center of Paris.
The Patient, Barely Alive, Had Collapsed on the RER
FOR AN INSTANT after he fell and just prior to his loss of consciousness he had seen something extraordinary and comforting. The world is full of stories and reports about the brief impressions that flash before the eyes of the dying and those who have come close to death. It’s easy to say that these are nothing more than the creations of minds under extreme stress, dreams and desires coming forth in an instant as images of a life’s hopes and loves – no longer held in check – break their ways to the surface. But is it possible to create a new color, in new light?
Jules saw a horizon of three hundred and sixty degrees. Dark gray clouds circled like a low wall. But it gave way to a glow above it in a color that did not exist on earth. It was simultaneously all but none of the known colors of white, beige, and platinum. It had the texture of mother-of-pearl or alabaster, but no veins, imperfections, or spectra of interference. It glowed as if the source of illumination were behind it, and pulsed almost imperceptibly. Its light immediately banished all fear and pain, washed away all regret. As it seemed to exist independently of time, and though he saw it for only a second or two, he felt as if he had been bathed in its light for eternity.
When he awakened in the ICU at La Pitié-Salpêtrière he felt disappointment at having once again re-entered the world. No one else was in the room, only the beeping machines, illuminated numbers, and dancing lights that these days keep watch over the sick and the dying. How easy it would have been to fall back into the gentle off-white glow. He tried to summon it by closing his eyes, but he couldn’t. He’d been thrown back, and would have to see it through. Coming awake, he assessed what was left to him and prepared for the useless tests, questions, and examinations that he was sure would follow. Having had them in New York he knew more or less where he stood.
AFTER NEUROLOGICAL WORKUPS, consultations, and visits from Cathérine and David, he discovered to his great relief many hours of happiness and contentment in La Pitié-Salpêtrière, a place he had hated but now loved, because it was the gate to the road upon which he would follow Jacqueline. Even if he would never find her, following was enough.
Things leveled off, the doctors were done with him, and he would be going home the next day. He didn’t know how he was able to adjust happily, but he had gotten used to the food and the routine, and even watched a movie on television. It was about a dog who, to find a female dog he had seen in a crate on a train, crossed the Australian continent to ask for her paw. Jules liked it. He loved dogs. The only reason he hadn’t gotten a dog was that he knew that the central component of a dog’s emotions is loyalty, and he didn’t want to break its heart when he died. But even dogless he looked forward to going out once again into Paris at the end of April.
Lying quietly propped up in his bed, he heard the well practiced knock of nurses and doctors about to enter a patient’s room. What did they imagine? That he would be with a tart? In fact, imprisoned in the hospital, all he could think about was sex. He tried not to include élodi but he did, often, imagining every part of her body and how he would be lost in his love of it. Now he realized that Dante had been playing a double game when he created the eternal kiss of Paolo and Francesca, because when Jules thought of touching, holding, and kissing élodi, he wanted it to last forever, and in the way he perceived this it would not have been punishment but paradise.
After the knock, a nurse half-entered the room, her right hand holding the door. “You have a visitor,” she said.
His obsession having tricked him that it was élodi, he started with pleasure and fear. “Send her in.”
The nurse was puzzled at first, then said, “A man, I assure you. A Monsieur Marteau. As big as an ox. It’s okay?” She saw Jules’ disappointment.
“Okay.”
Armand Marteau ducked slightly as he came through the doorway, although he didn’t have to.
“How did you know I was here?” Jules asked.
“You were responsible enough to carry the card I gave you. Still, it wasn’t so easy to find you. This is a big place. Neuropathologie, Batiment Paul Castaigne, Secteur Vincent Auriol, H?pital Universitaire La Pitié-Salpêtrière, quarante-sept à quatre-vingt-dix e trois Boulevard de l’H?pital, Treizième Arrondissement, sept cinq zero un trois, Paris. Geo graphical coordinates to the second would have been a fifth as long. But I found you.”
“Why would they, without my permission, contact you?”
“It says so on the card. It says ‘death or disability,’ and you’re disabled.”
“I am not disabled.”
“Medically and legally, you are. Your diagnosis ….”
“How do you know my diagnosis?”
“Don’t forget, you signed waivers. Full transparency, and with a basilar aneurysm that is both on the edge and inoperable, you are technically and legally fully disabled.”
“And what does that mean?”
“It means that your disability benefits started as soon as we received official notification, and that you cannot any longer work. It means you must resign your post and refrain from any activity related to either ongoing or future compensation, or even without compensation, from any activity related to your previous career or careers.”